mood: calm

I feel out of sorts in an atmosphere staged for showing thieves their crimes. The chair is cold, the screens are rotating through various corners of the building and Crystal never stops recording.  With so much official business going on, I question the value of my presence in that little room. My voice trails off as she’s tweaking knobs or selecting folders and she says, “Oh, keep going. I multitask.”

Questions posed like pop quizzes. Every other word is scribbled. It doesn’t take long before a strong person hopes to be dismissed and sent back into general chaos.

When monitoring the feel for each associate, Crystal will offer pieces of her life in conversation. The antics of her family are humorous, comfortable, and some of the only times when you’ll really see her at work. Other topics have intentions, if there is a discussion at all; she may suddenly appear, silently retrieving temperatures and data from everyone in the room.

No one can blame Crystal for her robot parts - after all - working to improve our cruel reality is not a joyous task, nor is it one that allows for favorites. She knows narks from the highest to lowest class who are liars, liars who are crooks, crooks with numbered days and has the overall pleasure of hearing them lie to her face on a daily basis. On top of this inconvenience there is too much paperwork and too many policies that keep her confined to that little room, merely noting their dishonesty until one of the files gets fat.

She is oddly surprised today, that I’ve recognized the change in her hair color every few months. Granted, her entrance is often swift and unannounced but I tend to catch her in the last stretch of aisle way, to her room in the back. How does one not notice a fresh head of golden curls, or Suddenly Straight Brunette, or Gone Gothic black, rushing by?

Rarely will someone have that many versions of themselves, all done up so professionally. Makeup complexion, eyebrow arch, highlights and not a split end in sight. So many loud variances for such a low profile. Could changing costumes help ease the monotony of work or are they chemical reactions to the flighty, ever-shifting people around her?

She would make many friends, she comments on the staff, if prosecuting them in the end wasn’t so awkward.

I apologize for asking a question that may be too personal, wondering if her work principles ever trickle into what little time is left over.

“It’s very hard to stop,” she answers, almost immediately. “It’s hard not to know what someone is hiding. This,” Crystal concludes, waving her palm over the desk of pulp and technology, “has pretty much ruined every relationship I’ve ever had.”

Such are the woes of our watchful girl above.

mood: contemplative

Sometimes I do Nicole’s homework. Not, like, filling out her papers to hand in, but I’ll steal from the assignments and do them on my own. The criminal justice curriculum has a lot of fluff about morality applied to law, viewpoint, self-perception blah blah blah.  She leaves her shit all over the back room and I am not one of those people who can see a notebook lying on the table and leave it closed. Cause I know notebooks. They are for secret secrets!

She just got asked by a professor to write about something very dear to her, and the class is not allowed to answer “family” or “friends”. What a whopper card, right? Family and friends – isn’t that everyone’s first answer? Someone else, be it God or Toothless Tom? This can’t be that easy.

What’s important to me? I can’t give an immediate answer that feels right. Do I care about who I am or…something that makes me alive? Do I answer “music”, though it works like a drug, making me sound like an addict? Would it be wise to tell the professor that it’s important to me, to be hooked on things?

And what kind of a tricky question is this? Why do you want to know what I’m about? What is there, to me? Do people’s answers categorize them in some way?

Enjoying life, as selfish as it sounds, is pretty important to me. Does that answer make me a bad person?

Animal rights are biggies, for me. Dogs and cats, especially, because of how we’ve taken them from the wild, made them love us unconditionally only to repay the majority of them with pain and famine. It isn’t a happy truth but I hold it close. I wish every animal abuser saw a cold jail cell. What is the root of that – justice?

Ooh, I wonder if they’re supposed to answer “justice” cause that’s their major!

Haha, I solved it!

Nicole might claim her Golden Girls boxset. I better warn her.

mood: determined

My best wishes go out to those who are suffering from the dip in our economy. For several months I kept asking what the fuss was about. All I saw, despite our previous rise in gas prices, was that a lot of Stuff was on sale.

When work cut me down a few hours, I cheered. Minimal work with full benefits were all I saw at the time. I didn’t realize it was a prelude to downsizing.

A lot of people at my place complain about how hard it is to find a job. I thought it was because of their idividual faults like numerous spelling errors on their resumes, or perhaps they sit down for interviews with missing front teeth. I thought this way because I jumped into Real World 101 very late, without an ounce of credit to my name (something I would not reveal), and got to pick which company I wanted to work for.

So why worry? If you don’t have it, fake it. Just do what you have to do and get where you need to be, right? Not so true. I’m starting to see what everyone was worried about – not just those with crimminal records and toothless grins.

The giant scissors came out last week, cutting various people loose from my company and my boys’ company. It didn’t matter how old you were, how long you had been with them or what was going to happen to you – if you weren’t uniquely responsible for the money making, you got laid off. A lot of people who have always been around didn't come back on Monday. Shocked and silenced, Brad and I came home feeling like some of the last ones standing.

It’s real, isn’t it? What a fuckin’ bummer.

Now I’m evaluating our resources, our meal plans, our weekend hoo-ha’s, everything. There will be more board games and less outings. Maybe the heat doesn’t always have to read 74. Maybe I don’t need all of that shit off ebay.

I could stand to pay attention.

And what about the people who were barely getting by, before, who you knew were thankful for the shit end of the stick?

What are they going to do?

Yes, he has a gold tooth, a head that bops out and back,
a body that swings side to side and arms that spin over the
records! I plug him into my mp4 player and he gives a light
show when he's working. This little DJ can be found at Lowes.

Last month was spent preparing for Thanksgiving. There was the consideration for dress, harvest décor, seasonal gifts due to the fact that I wasn’t about to cook, family arrangement, getting Gigi bathed, and being political enough at work to get a span of four days off in a row (the busiest days of the year) without the excuse of illness or death. And holiday pay, because it seemed to justify the work away from work.

Close to show time I crossed off the very last thing on my checklist but didn’t feel ready for the holiday. Tired and not looking forward to the unnaturally social aspect of the thing, I scribbled at the bottom of my notebook: I need to find a source of energy from somewhere deep inside. Brad found my papers on the floor beside his video game chair, picked up the pen and added: me too.

Mom, as she has always done, made a giant meal of the general traditions. Thanksgiving morning I heard her yell at my dad to go into town just for basil, without her full list of errands, because it was a stuffing emergency. Like a silent hero, he took off upon her requests and was the only one to notice when our company was on the front porch, wanting inside; the announcement sent me sprinting into the bathroom with the outfit I had just brought out from the dryer. Had that hour really just flown by, watching the Macy’s Day Parade?

And what was with the camera angle on those Rockettes? I saw more crotch shot than leg.

A magic started happening around us, that kind of sweet reward that only comes after obligatory chores and group effort. My parents’ house was clean and better staged than it has been since I lived there. Table and counter tops were clear. My brother was happy to see us and remained pleasant, an odd streak of good days for uncertain reasons. My last remaining grandparent looked well, diamond snowflakes clipped to her ears for kicks. Aunt Robin, The Favorite Aunt, obviously counseled Grandma about not asking uncomfortable questions regarding marriage or anything else.

We stuffed ourselves, exchanged goodies and headed off to the other side of town for Brad’s family stuff. Because Mom knows that Image is all part of this season’s game, she made it so that I was standing at his aunt’s door with a bright poinsettia and corn bake in my arms. Meanwhile I was just following the track, very there, but not all together. My mind wouldn’t focus on the participation. I didn’t talk much and just sort of smiled half-heartedly when appropriate.

Sure, we dazzled in comparison. That much is easy to arrange. But we weren’t stopping any shows. The passion just wasn’t there.

It wasn’t until the end, on the drive home to my family, that I found joy in the occasion. Back at the workshop that has been home, behind the scenes, all the good stuff happened. I put on my Guitar Hero pajama pants, grazed on dessert and played Monopoly Pink(my most recent obsession) with my family. It was aimless bliss, soaking in HGTV crafts (which gave me the idea to have Brad tie garland around our chandelier) and watching Gigi go nuts over all the scents and room to run. We ended up staying three days, sleeping peacefully on our own pillows each night, just happy to expect nothing and have no responsibility. My smiles were whole-hearted.

It was a real vacation, unplanned.